NVIDIA Corporation
HIGH DYNAMIC RANGE SUPPORT FOR LEGACY APPLICATIONS

Abstract:

High dynamic range (HDR) support is provided for legacy application programs, such as games that are configured to display standard dynamic range (SDR) frames. HDR frames may be synthesized without modifying the legacy application program. The buffer creation process of the legacy application program is intercepted and modified before creation of the SDR format buffer so that the buffer is configured to use an HDR format. A location of an intermediate buffer storing HDR rendered data is determined by intercepting and analyzing graphics driver calls in a command stream produced by the legacy application program. The HDR rendered data is combined with user interface content extracted from the SDR frames. Additionally, any post processing effects used by the legacy application program to produce the SDR frames may be predicted and applied to the HDR rendered data to synthesize the HDR frames for display on a modern HDR display device.